One of our students would like to solve antenna placement (or radio network design) problem, using evolutionary computing methods. We have to formulate an optimization problem for her. As I am not expert in antennas, it is difficult for me to point out the most important antenna parameters for such an optimization problem.
The formulation of the optimization problem should be as simple as possible (with reduced set of antenna’s parameters), because the focus will be on developing heuristic algorithms.
The simplest idea emerging is to place antennas in a set of given sites, so that maximum radio coverage with minimum costs is achieved. In this case the fitness function of an individual will be calculated by radio coverage and costs (for placing or for rental).
Would you, please, advise me if such a problem formulation is meaningful?
Formulation seems simple enough, as u already considered the fitness function. just consider the parametrs that lead u give the fitness as a part of ur chromosome, e.g., distance or some other things like that.
If your final goal is to optimize the placement of antennas for a mobile phone network, the orientation of the antennas is important, because there is usually 3 directional antennas in the towers, so the coverage is not even in all directions. Height of the antennas is also important.
It seems meaningful if you suppose that the frequency of all antennas is the same. Your formulation is like a set covering problem where you are not considering antennas properties, so in this case is similar to determine where to install emergency equipments, or hospital or anything for a good service. If you would like to include other aspects as antennas frequency you can check papers on FAP (frequency assignment problem)
I forgot to ask if you want optimal placement regarding only coverage, or if you want coverage with budget constraints (renting space for antennas in some places could be more expensive than in other places, installation cost could vary, antenna in higher tower is more expensive but has greater coverage than antenna in smaller tower), or if you prefer multi objective optimizacion (Pareto front: coverage vs. cost). The first problem is simpler, but of course is not quite realistic
Thank you for the opinion, colleagues!
You are right, that my formulation proposal above does not consider antenna specific features. For making the problem more realistic (or nearly close to reality) properties as placement cost, direction, frequency should be considered.
I'm not a "great" antennas scientist, but...
You should take in consideration:
- transmitting power
- receiver sensitivity
- antenna gain
- antenna height
- antenna diagram - horizontal and vertical
- for freqs, higher than Nx100 MHz there is multipath traveling of the signal, especially in city like Varna. There will be many "shadows" in antenna diagram from near placed high buildings.
In my opinion, as it was mentioned from previous writers, this is "optimal radio coverage problem" that is common for mobile phone comms.
You should evaluate the coverage against the price for every antenna place and after that for the entire system as whole. You can calculate the coverage from the above parameters and the price can be an individual constant for every point.
And after all of that you can use some kind of minimax or maximin function to calculate the optimum.
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